Welcome/Resources

Welcome to Code for Kansas City A Code for America Brigade!

Serve Your Community Through Civic Tech

We are Code for Kansas City, the local chapter of Code for America Brigade supporting civic hacking in Kansas City.

Code for America Brigade brings together developers, designers, data geeks, civic leaders, organizers, and idea-makers from communities to help local government and civic organizations adopt open web technologies. Code for America Brigade is the volunteer arm of the larger, national organization Code for America.

Who This is For

Anyone with a desire and a passion for applying their technology skills to improve our community, open government, and open civic data.

What to Expect

You can apply your skills and expertise to work on an existing problem or project you care about like:

Improving park access

Helping the fire department locate fire hydrants

Launching a web app to find your city bus

Creating an app to help residents find information about your city

Helping residents get up-to-date information on the status of blighted properties in their community

Creating an app that allows parents to track their child’s bus in real time

Create apps. Design websites. Organize events. Write copy. And more!

Hang out with other civic hackers, eat pizza and drink beverages.

What Not to Expect

You can pick up expert advice, tips and tricks about new technologies but we are not a tech meetup or user group, and are usually working sessions not presentation format.

You can meet a lot of new and interesting people and make useful connections but we are not a networking group. We are volunteers working to make our community better through technology.

You can learn a lot of things about coding and design by participating in Brigade but we are not a code or design school.

Who’s in Charge

Captain: Paul Barham

Brigade Evangelist: THEA RASINS

Delivery Lead/Data Co-Wrangler: DAVID LaCRONE

Developer Evangelist/Data Co-Wrangler: RON HOUSE

Developer Evangelist: JON KOHRS

Documentarian/Storyteller: JASON HARPER

Policy Evangelist: LESLIE SCOTT

User Experience Architect: OLEH KOVALCHUKE

How it Works

We meet weekly, usually on Monday nights at the Sprint Accelerator, to either Hack (work on projects), Yack (socialize) or Learn (hear from a speaker).
We use Meetup for organizing our events, so be sure to visit meetup.com/kcbrigade for the latest information.

The format for Hack Nights:

6:00 - Social / Introductions

6:10 - New Member Orientation

6:20 - Project Pitches

6:30 - Work on projects

7:00 - Pizza arrives

7:45 - Wrap up - get project updates

Required Tools

Bring your laptop/tablet as it’s typically a working group with the occasional presentation. Free wifi is provided.

How Decisions Are Made

We use the Lazy Consensus model, meaning that if you think it’s right for the group you have a green light, so don’t wait around for approval. Concerns can be asked, but if you don’t get much feedback that’s a good thing and you can rock on.

How Projects Are Chosen

We choose projects based on:

Needs we identify through listening sessions with local gov and community organizations. We want to make things people will actually use.

Learn to Code. This is a huge topic that we will only touch on. Coding is a lifelong journey, but something anyone can learn through persistent practice, just like learning Spanish… it’s something you can’t just do an hour or two a month and expect to be fluent at. That being said, if you’re interested in software development, the web is full of excellent, free and (some) paid resources for learning. We focus primarily on web sites and applications first (rather then iOS Apps or Android Apps, because everyone can use a web app). The web is made up of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Everyone should know HTML and CSS basics before diving into “backend” languages like Python, Ruby, or JavaScript. Google is your friend. The brigade is not a place to get code training, but we’re all hear to help each other find the answers were seeking. Some random learning resources:

Learn to License. Since civic hacking starts with open source software and usually encompasses free software as well, you’ll need to understand the myriad of software licenses out there and how to apply them to your work. We prefer and default to MIT license. Some learning resource suggestions:

Code of Conduct

Contact Us

This sites creator was Paul Barham, but many others help to keep it awesome. You can file a issue/request in our bug tracker, join our email group and discuss there, find us on twitter using @codeforkc, or just email pbarham@codeforamerica.org